The Emergency (India)

In India, "the Emergency"
refers to a 21-month period in 1975–77 when Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi unilaterally had a state of emergency declared
across the country. Officially issued by President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed under
Article 352(1) of the Constitution for "internal
disturbance", the Emergency was in effect from 25 June 1975 until its
withdrawal on 21 March 1977. The order bestowed upon the prime minister the
authority to rule by decree, allowing
elections to be suspended and civil liberties to be curbed. For much of the
Emergency, most of Gandhi's political opponents were imprisoned and the press
was censored. Several other atrocities were reported from the time, including a
forced mass-sterilisation campaign spearheaded by Sanjay
Gandhi, the Prime Minister's son. The Emergency is one of the most
controversial periods of independent India's
history.[1]

Prelude

Rise of Indira Gandhi

Between 1967 and 1971, Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi came to obtain
near-absolute control over the government and the Indian National Congress
party, as well as a huge majority in Parliament. The first was achieved by concentrating
the central government's power within the Prime Minister's
Secretariat, rather than the Cabinet,
whose elected members she saw as a threat and distrusted. For this she relied
on her principal secretary, P. N. Haksar, a central figure
in Indira's Kashmiri Pandit–dominated
inner circle of advisors. Further, Haksar promoted the idea of a
"committed bureaucracy" that required government officials to be
"committed" to ideology of the ruling party of the day.Within the Congress, Indira
ruthlessly outmanoeuvred her rivals, forcing a split in 1969—into the Congress
(O) (comprising the party old-guard known as the
"Syndicate") and her Congress (R). A majority of the All-India Congress Committee
and Congress MPs sided with the prime minister. Indira's party was a different
beast from the Congress of old, a robust institution with traditions of
internal democracy. In the Congress (R), on the other hand, members quickly
realised that their progress within the ranks depended solely on their loyalty
to Indira Gandhi and her family, and ostentatious
displays of sycophancy became routine. In the coming years, Indira's influence
was such that she could install hand-picked loyalists as chief ministers of
states, rather than they being elected by the Congress legislative party.Indira's ascent was backed by her
appeal among the public. Always a charismatic figure, her pull with the masses
was aided by her government's near-radical leftward turns. These include the
July 1969 nationalisation of several major banks[3]
and the September 1970 abolition of the privy purse;[4]
these were often done suddenly, via ordinance, to the universal shock of her
opponents. Subsequently, unlike the Syndicate and other opponents, Indira was
seen as "standing for socialism in economics and secularism in matters of
religion, as being pro-poor and for the development of the nation as a whole."[5]
The prime minister was especially adored by the disadvantaged sections—the
poor, Dalits, women and minorities. For them, she was their Indira Amma,
a personification of Mother India.In the 1971 general elections,
the people rallied behind Indira's populist slogan of Garibi Hatao! (get
rid of poverty!) to award her a huge majority (352 seats out of 518). "By
the margin of its victory," historian Ramachandra
Guha later wrote, Congress (R) came to be known as the real
Congress, "requiring no qualifying suffix."[5]
In December 1971, under her proactive war leadership, India routed arch-enemy
Pakistan in a war that led to the independence of Bangladesh, formerly East
Pakistan. Awarded the Bharat Ratna the next month,
she was at her greatest peak; for her biographer Inder
Malhotra, "The Economist '​s
description of her as the 'Empress of India' seemed apt." Even opposition
leaders, who routinely accused her of being a dictator and of fostering a personality
cult, referred to her as Durga, a
Hindu goddess.[6]

Tendency of the
executive to control the judiciary

In the famous Golaknath
case, the Supreme Court said that the Constitution could not be
amended by Parliament if it affects basic
issues such as fundamental rights. To nullify this judgement Parliament,
dominated by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's Indian National Congress
party, passed the 24th
Amendment in 1971. Similarly, after the government lost a Supreme
Court case for withdrawing the privy purse given to erstwhile
princes, Parliament passed the 26th
Amendment. This gave constitutional validity to the government's
abolition of the privy purse and nullified the Supreme Court's order.This judiciary–executive battle
would continue in the landmark Kesavananda Bharati
case, where the 24th Amendment was called into question. With a
wafer-thin majority of 7 to 6, the bench of the Supreme Court restricted
Parliament's amendment power
by stating it could not be used to alter the "basic
structure" of the Constitution. Subsequently, Prime Minister
Gandhi made A.
N. Ray—the seniormost judge amongst those in the minority in Kesavananda
Bharati—as Chief Justice of India. Ray
superseded three judges more senior to him—J. M. Shelat, Hegde and Grover—all
members of the majority in Kesavananda Bharati. Indira Gandhi's tendency
to control the judiciary met with severe criticism, both from the press and
political opponents such as Jayaprakash Narayan
("JP").

Political unrest

During 1973–75, political unrest
against the Indira Gandhi government increased across the country. (This led to
some Congress-party leaders to demand for a move towards a presidential system, with a
more-powerful directly elected executive.) The most significant of the initial
such movement was the Nav Nirman movement in
Gujarat, between December 1973 and March 1974. Student unrest against the
state's education minister ultimately forced the central government to dissolve
the state legislature, leading to the resignation of the chief minister, Chimanbhai
Patel, and the imposition of President's
rule. After the re-elections in June 1975, Gandhi's party was
defeated by the Janata alliance, formed by
parties opposed to the ruling Congress party.In March–April 1974, a student
agitation by the Bihar Chatra Sangharsh Samiti received the support of Gandhian
socialist Jayaprakash Narayan, referred
to as JP, against the Bihar government. In April 1974, in Patna, JP
called for "total revolution", asking
students, peasants, and labour organizations non-violently
transform Indian society. He also demanded the dissolution of the state
government, but this was not accepted by Centre. A month later, the
railway-employees union, the largest union in the country, went on a nationwide
strike. This strike was brutally suppressed by the Indira Gandhi government,
which arrested thousands of employees and drove their families out of their
quarters.Even within parliament, the
government faced much criticism. Ever since she took charge as prime minister
in 1966, Indira Gandhi 's government had to face ten no-confidence motions in the Lok
Sabha.[7]

Raj Narain verdict

Raj
Narain, who had been defeated in parliamentary election by Indira
Gandhi, lodged cases of election fraud and use of state machinery for election
purposes against her in the Allahabad High Court. Shanti
Bhushan fought the case for Narain. Gandhi was also cross-examined
in the High Court which was the first such instance for an Indian prime
minister.On 12 June 1975, Justice Jagmohanlal
Sinha of the Allahabad High Court found the prime minister guilty on
the charge of misuse of government machinery for her election campaign. The
court declared her election null and void and unseated her
from her seat in the Lok Sabha. The court also
banned her from contesting any election for an additional six years. Serious
charges such as bribing voters and election malpractices were dropped and she
was held responsible for misusing government machinery, and found guilty on
charges such as using the state police to build a dais, availing the services
of a government officer, Yashpal Kapoor, during the elections before he had
resigned from his position, and use of electricity from the state electricity
department.Because the court unseated her on
comparatively frivolous charges, while she was acquitted on more serious
charges, The
Times described it as "firing the Prime Minister for a
traffic ticket". However, strikes in trade, student and government unions
swept across the country. Led by JP, Narain, Satyendra Narayan Sinha and Morarji
Desai, protestors flooded the streets of Delhi close to the
Parliament building and the Prime Minister's residence. The persistent efforts
of Narain were praised worldwide as it took over four years for Justice Sinha
to pass judgement against the prime minister.Indira Gandhi challenged the High
Court's decision in the Supreme Court. Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer, on 24 June
1975, upheld the High Court judgement and ordered all privileges Gandhi
received as an MP be stopped, and that she be debarred from voting. However,
she was allowed to continue as Prime Minister. The next day, JP organised a
large rally in Delhi, where he said that a police officer must reject the
orders of government if the order is immoral and unethical as this was Mahatma
Gandhi's motto during the freedom struggle. Such a statement was
taken as a sign of inciting rebellion in the country. Later that day, Indira
Gandhi requested a compliant President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed to issue
a proclamation of a state of emergency. Within
three hours, the electricity to all major newspapers was cut and the
political-opposition arrested. The proposal was sent without discussion with
the Union Cabinet, who only learnt of it and ratified it the next morning.

Proclamation of the Emergency

The Government cited threats to
national security, as a war with Pakistan had recently been concluded. Due to
the war and additional challenges of drought and the 1973
oil crisis, the economy was in bad shape. The Government claimed
that the strikes and protests had paralysed the government and hurt the economy
of the country greatly. In the face of massive political opposition, desertion
and disorder across the country and the party, Gandhi stuck to the advice of a
few loyalists and her younger son Sanjay
Gandhi, whose own power had grown considerably over the last few
years to become an "extra-constitutional authority". Siddhartha Shankar Ray, the Chief Minister of West
Bengal, proposed to the prime minister to impose an "internal
emergency". He drafted a letter for the President to issue the
proclamation on the basis of information Indira had received that "there
is an imminent danger to the security of India being threatened by internal
disturbances". He showed how democratic freedom could be suspended while
remaining within the ambit of the Constitution.[8]After a quick question regarding
a procedural matter, President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed declared
a state of internal emergency
upon the prime minister's advice on the night of 25 June 1975, just a few
minutes before the clock struck midnight.As the constitution requires, Ms.
Gandhi advised and President Ahmed approved the continuation of Emergency over
every six-month period until her decision to hold elections in 1977.

Administration

Indira Gandhi devised a
'20-point' economic program to increase agricultural and industrial production,
improve public services and fight poverty and illiteracy, through "the
discipline of the graveyard".[9]
It was famously said that during the Emergency trains would run on time,
employees would be still be able to attend to their duties and work could still
be carried out in government offices.[citation
needed]

Arrests

The 1976 arrest
of socialist labour leader George
Fernandes, who raises his shackled hand defiantly. This became an iconic
image of the Emergency.[10]

Invoking article 352 of the Indian Constitution, Gandhi
granted herself extraordinary powers and launched a massive crackdown on civil
liberties and political opposition. The Government used police forces across
the country to place thousands of protestors and strike leaders under
preventive detention. Vijayaraje Scindia, JP, Raj
Narain, Morarji Desai, Charan
Singh, Jivatram Kripalani, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L.
K. Advani, Satyendra Narayan Sinha and other protest leaders were
immediately arrested. Organizations like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS) and Jamaat-e-Islami along with
some political parties were banned. Numerous Communist leaders were arrested
along with many others involved with their party.In Tamil Nadu the M.
Karunanidhi government was dissolved and the leaders of the DMK were
incarcerated. In particular, Karunanidhi's son M.
K. Stalin, was arrested under the Maintenance of Internal
Security Act. At least nine high courts pronounced that even after
the declaration of an emergency a person could challenge his detention. The
Supreme Court, now under the Indira Gandhi-appointed Chief Justice A.
N. Ray, overruled all of them upholding the state's plea for power
to detain a person without the necessity of informing him of the
reasons/grounds of his arrest or, to suspend his personal liberties or, to
deprive him of his right to life, in an absolute manner (the habeas corpus
case').[11][12]
Many political workers who were not arrested in the first wave, went
'underground' continuing organising protests.[13]

Laws, Human Rights and Elections

Elections for the Parliament and
state governments were postponed. Gandhi and her parliamentary majorities could
rewrite the nation's laws, since her Congress party had the required mandate to
do so - a two-thirds majority in the Parliament. And when she felt the existing
laws were 'too slow', she got the President to issue 'Ordinances' - a law
making power in times of urgency, invoked sparingly - completely bypassing the
Parliament, allowing her to rule
by decree. Also, she had little trouble amending the Constitution
that exonerated her from any culpability in her election-fraud case, imposing President's
Rule in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, where anti-Indira parties ruled
(state legislatures were thereby dissolved and suspended indefinitely), and
jailing thousands of opponents. The 42nd
Amendment, which brought about extensive changes to the letter and
spirit of the Constitution, is one of the lasting legacies of the Emergency. In
the conclusion of his Making of India's Constitution, Justice Khanna
writes:If the Indian constitution is our
heritage bequeathed to us by our founding fathers, no less are we, the people
of India, the trustees and custodians of the values which pulsate within its
provisions! A constitution is not a parchment of paper, it is a way of life and
has to be lived up to. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty and in the
final analysis, its only keepers are the people. Imbecility of men, history
teaches us, always invites the impudence of power."[14]A fallout of the Emergency era
was - the Supreme Court laid down that, although the Constitution is amenable to
amendments (as abused by Indira Gandhi), changes that tinker
with its basic structure[15]
cannot be made by the Parliament. (see Kesavananda Bharati v.
State of Kerala)[16]In the Rajan
case, P. Rajan of the Regional Engineering
College, Calicut, was arrested by the police in Kerala on 1
March 1976,[17]
tortured in custody until he died and then his body was disposed which was
never recovered. The facts of this incident came out owing to a habeas
corpus suit filed in the Kerala
High Court.[18][19]

Family planning

Sanjay
Gandhi was especially concerned with issues of overpopulation. He
initiated a birth control program, chiefly employing sterilisation, primarily
vasectomies. Quotas were set up that enthusiastic supporters worked hard to
achieve. Critics arouse anger by charging it involved coercion of unwilling
Indians.[20]
In 1976-1977, the program counted 8.3 million sterilisations, up from 2.7
million the previous year. The bad name forced changes in the name of the
program and every government since 1977 has stressed family planning is
entirely voluntary.[21]

Criticism against the Government

Criticism and accusations of the
Emergency-era may be grouped as:

Detention of people by police without
charge or notification of families

Abuse and torture of detainees and
political prisoners

Use of public and private media
institutions, like the national television network Doordarshan,
for government propaganda

Forced sterilisation.

Destruction of the slum and
low-income housing in the Turkmen Gate and Jama Masjid area of old Delhi.

Large-scale and illegal enactment of
laws (including modifications to the Constitution).

The Emergency years were the
biggest challenge to India's commitment to democracy, which proved vulnerable
to the manipulation of powerful leaders and hegemonic Parliamentary majorities.

Resistance movements

Sikh opposition

With the leaders of all
opposition parties and other outspoken critics of her government arrested and
behind bars, the entire country was in a state of shock. Shortly after the
declaration of the Emergency, the Sikh leadership convened meetings in Amritsar
where they resolved to oppose the "fascist tendency of the Congress".[22]
The first mass protest in the country, known as the "Campaign to Save
Democracy" was organised by the Akali Dal and launched in Amritsar, 9
July. A statement to the press recalled the historic Sikh struggle for freedom
under the Mughals, then under the British, and voiced concern that what had
been fought for and achieved was being lost. The police were out in force for
the demonstration and arrested the protestors, including the Shiromani Akali Dal and Shiromani Gurdwara
Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) leaders.The Prime Minister seemed
genuinely surprised at the strength of the response from the Sikhs. Fearing
their defiance might inspire civil disobedience in other parts of the county,
she offered to negotiate a deal with the Shiromani Akal Dal that would give it
joint control of the Punjab Legislative Assembly.
The leader of the protests, Sant Harcharan Singh Longowal
refused to meet with government representatives so long as the Emergency was in
effect. In a press interview, he made clear the grounds of the Save Democracy
campaign.

"The question before us is not whether Indira Gandhi should continue
to be prime minister or not. The point is whether democracy in this country is
to survive or not. The democratic structure stands on three pillars, namely a
strong opposition, independent judiciary and free press. Emergency has
destroyed all these essentials."[23]

While the civil disobedience
campaign caught on in some parts of the country, especially at Delhi
University, the government's tactics of mass arrests, censorship and
intimidation curtailed the oppositions's popularity. After January, the Sikhs
remained virtually alone in their active resistance to the regime. Hailed by
opposition leaders as "the last bastion of democracy",[24]
they continued to come out in large numbers each month on the day of the new
moon, symbolising the dark night of Indian democracy, to court arrest.According to Amnesty
International, 140,000 people had been arrested without trial during the twenty
months of Gandhi's Emergency. Jasjit Singh Grewal estimates that 40,000 of them
came from India's two percent Sikh minority.[25]

The role of RSS

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh,
which was seen close to opposition leaders, and with its large organizational
base was seen as having the potential of organising protests against the
Government, was also banned.[26]
Police clamped down on the organisation and thousands of its workers were
imprisoned.[27]The RSS defied the ban and
thousands participated in Satyagraha (peaceful protests) against the ban and
against the curtailment of fundamental rights. Later, when there was no letup,
the volunteers of the RSS formed underground movements for the restoration of
democracy. Literature that was censored in the media was clandestinely
published and distributed on a large scale and funds were collected for the
movement. Networks were established between leaders of different political
parties in the jail and outside for the co-ordination of the movement.[28]The
Economist
described the movement as "the only non-left revolutionary force in the world".
It said that the movement was "dominated by tens of thousands of RSS
cadres, though more and more young recruits are coming". Talking about its
objectives it said "its platform at the moment has only one plank: to
bring democracy back to India".[29]

Elections of 1977

On 18 January 1977, Gandhi called
fresh elections for March and released all political prisoners. The Emergency
officially ended on 23 March 1977. The opposition Janata movement's campaign
warned Indians that the elections might be their last chance to choose between
"democracy and dictatorship."In the Lok
Sabha elections, held in March, Mrs. Gandhi and Sanjay both lost
their Lok Sabha seats, as did all the Congress Candidates in Northern states
such as Bihar
and Uttar
Pradesh. Many Congress Party loyalists deserted Mrs. Gandhi. The
Congress was reduced to just 153 seats, 92 of which were from four of the
southern states. The Janata Party's 298 seats and its allies' 47 seats (of a
total 542) gave it a massive majority. Morarji
Desai became the first non-Congress Prime Minister of India.The elections in the largest
state Uttar
Pradesh, historically a Congress stronghold, turned against Gandhi
and her party failed to win a single seat in the state. Dhanagare says the
structural reasons behind the discontent against the Government included the
emergence of a strong and united opposition, disunity and weariness inside
Congress, an effective underground opposition, and the ineffectiveness of
Gandhi's control of the mass media, which had lost much credibility. The
structural factors allowed voters to express their grievances, notably their
resentment of the emergency and its authoritarian and repressive policies. One
grievance often mentioned as the 'nasbandi' (vasectomy) campaign in rural
areas. The middle classes also emphasised the curbing of freedom throughout the
state and India.[30]
Meanwhile Congress hit an all-time low in West
Bengal because of the poor discipline and factionalism among
Congress activists as well as the numerous defections that weakened the party.[31]
Opponents emphasised the issues of corruption in Congress and appealed to a
deep desire by the voters for fresh leadership.[32]

The tribunal

The efforts of the Janata
administration to get government officials and Congress politicians tried for
Emergency-era abuses and crimes were largely unsuccessful due to a
disorganised, over-complex and politically motivated process of litigation.
Although special tribunals were organised and scores of senior Congress Party
and government officials arrested and charged, including Mrs. Gandhi and Sanjay
Gandhi, police were unable to submit sufficient evidence for most cases, and
only a few low-level officials were convicted of any abuses.The people lost interest in the
hearings owing to their continuous fumbling and complex nature, and the
economic and social needs of the country grew more important to them.

Legacy

The Emergency lasted 21 months,
and its legacy remains intensely controversial. On 26 June 1975, the day after
emergency was imposed, the Bombay edition of The Times of India carried
an obituary that read "D.E.M O'Cracy beloved husband of T.Ruth, father of
L.I.Bertie, brother of Faith, Hope and Justica expired on 26 June".[33]
A few days later censorship was imposed on newspapers. The Delhi edition of the
Indian
Express on 28 June, carried a blank editorial, while the Financial Express
reproduced in large type Rabindranath Tagore's poem
"Where the mind is
without fear".[34]However, the Emergency also
received support from several sections. It was endorsed by social reformer Vinoba
Bhave (who called it Anushasan parva, a time for discipline),
industrialist J. R. D. Tata, writer Khushwant
Singh and Indira Gandhi's close friend & Orissa Chief MinisterNandini
Satpathy. However, Tata and Satpathy later regretted that they spoke
in favour of the Emergency.[35][36]
Others have argued that Gandhi's Twenty Point Programme increased agricultural
production, manufacturing activity, exports and foreign reserves. Communal
Hindu–Muslim riots, which had resurfaced in the 1960s and 1970s, also reduced
in intensity.[citation
needed]In the book JP Movement and
the Emergency, historian Bipan
Chandra wrote, "Sanjay
Gandhi and his cronies like Bansi
Lal, Minister of Defence at the
time, were keen on postponing elections and prolonging the emergency by several
years ... In October–November 1976, an effort was made to change the basic civil
libertarian structure of the Indian Constitution thorough the 42nd
amendment to it. ... The most important changes were designed to
strengthen the executive at the cost of the judiciary, and thus disturb the
carefully crafted system of Constitutional checks and balance between the
three organs of the government."[37]

Booker
Prize-winner Midnight's Children by Salman
Rushdie, has the protagonist, Saleem Sinai, in India during the
Emergency. His home in a low income area, called the "magician's
ghetto", is destroyed as part of the national beautification program.
He is forcibly sterilised as part of the vasectomy program. The principal
antagonist of the book is "the Widow" (a likeness that Indira
Gandhi successfully sued Rushdie for). There was one line in the book that
repeated an old Indian rumour that Indira Gandhi’s son didn’t like his
mother because he suspected her of causing the death of his father. As
this was a rumour there was no substantiation to be found.[39]

The Plunge An English novel by Sanjeev Tare is their own
story told by four youths studying at Kalidas College in Nagpur. They tell
the reader what they went through during those politically turbulent
times.

The Malayalam
novel Delhi Gadhakal (Tales from Delhi) by
M.
Mukundan highlights many abuses that occurred during the Emergency
including forced sterilisation of men and the destruction of houses and
shops owned by Muslims in Turkmen Gate.

The Tamil
novel Marukkozhunthu Mangai
(Girl with Fragrant Chinese
Mugwort ) by Ra.Su. Nallaperumal
which is based on the history of Pallavas
& People' rising in Kanchi during 725 A.D explains how the widow Queen
and the Princess kill the freedom of the people. Most of the incidents
described in the novel are resembling with emergency period. Even the name
of the characters in the novel are resembling with Mrs Gandhi and her
family.

Film

Amrit Nahata's film Kissa
Kursi Ka (1977) a bold spoof on the Emergency, where Shabana
Azmi plays 'Janata' (the public) a mute, dumb protagonist, was
subsequently banned and reportedly,[40]
all its prints were burned.

I. S.
Johar's 1978 Bollywood Film Nasbandi
is a sarcasm on the sterlisation drive of the Government of India, where each one of the
characters, is trying to find sterlisation cases. The film was banned
after its release due to its portrayal of the Indira Gandhi government.

1988 Malayalam
film Piravi
is about a father searching for his son Rajan,
who had been arrested by the police (and allegedly killed in custody).

The 2005 Hindi film Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi is set
against the backdrop of the Emergency. The film, directed by Sudhir
Mishra, also tries to portray the growth of the Naxalite
movement during the Emergency era. The movie tells the story of three
youngsters in the 1970s, when India was undergoing massive social and
political changes.

Gulzar's Aandhi
(1975) was banned, because the film was supposedly based on Indira Gandhi.[41]

The 2012 Marathi film Shala
discusses the issues related to the Emergency.